


"we all churn inside."

by mavnificent



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-25
Updated: 2012-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 08:00:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mavnificent/pseuds/mavnificent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tina's seen a lot of people fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"we all churn inside."

**Author's Note:**

> If you squint, you can see Quinn/Tina! Season 3 compliant. The title comes from Brian Doyle's short essay "Joyas Voladoras", which I can't recommend enough.
> 
> Inspired by this gif:
> 
>  

Tina’s seen a lot of people fall.

She watched Puck and Finn fall like Icarus out of the hierarchical sky sophomore year, arms tangled as they tried to make the other hit the sea first. She’s watched Kurt crumble beneath the pressure of society, wings not so much melting as splintering on impact. She’s seen Artie at his most vulnerable, his most defeated, his most broken, caught underneath a riptide, tossed and carried under. She’s seen Santana torn from the air like the ocean came up to meet her fall, to drag her down. Tina’s seen everyone in glee club fall at one point or another, from their own ego or from a slushie first thing on a Monday morning. A locker check, a whispered word, a shouted slur, the worst coming from inside of the powder keg that is the choir room during their lunch hour. Twelve o’clock sharp the glee kids file into the room, each with a struck match to set off, to set fire to, to melt whatever it is that is holding them together.

But through it all, Tina has also watched them learn to swim. She’s watched them all pluck their own feathers, pull their wings off, fingertips burnt by hot wax, pricked by splintered bone, before they all dive into the waves to fight against the current.

Except Quinn.

And as Quinn walks down the hall, chin tipped up, the sound of her boots loud against the scuffed tiles, she’s making her own swagger and owning it. Only it makes something in Tina crack. It’s not a clean break or a large one, just a hairline fracture from somewhere inside of her chest down to somewhere deep in her belly, though Tina thinks if pressed hard enough she might crumble too.

Quinn doesn’t want to lose her wings. Quinn stubbornly keeps a hold of them, drags them wet and waterlogged in her wake as she tries to find a way to fly again even though they’re so broken. She’s so broken, and Tina wants to cry because Quinn is drowning in a sea of her own making and too many helping hands will only push her under the waves. They’ll only tear her apart. So Tina treads water and watches.

Quinn walks with her head high with an air of I-don’t-give-a-fuck. Only she does. Tina knows she does, and when Quinn glances her way as she passes their bank of lockers, Tina sees it. For a split, open second: vulnerability. Quinn’s step doesn’t falter, she doesn’t trip or fall, but it’s the last, frightened glance before the sea closes over her head and drags her back down again.

Tina wonders if she’s the only one who saw it. She doesn’t think she is. She knows she can’t be, but she can’t save Quinn either. You can’t teach a person how to swim if they don’t want to learn.

But for a brief, fleeting moment Tina wants to drown alongside Quinn. She wants to grab her hand and anchor her to the bottom of the ocean, because she can’t help but she can stay with Quinn until both pairs of lungs burn out. And Tina would smile at her and squeeze her fingers tight. Tina wouldn’t let go.

The sea is just so lonely and no one, not even Quinn Fabray, deserves that kind of solitude.


End file.
